Heart of Gold
by Clar the Pirate
Summary: There once upon a time was a King with twelve daughters, each more beautiful than the last.
1. Part One

_"There was once upon a time a King who had twelve daughters, each more beautiful than the other."_ - The Shoes that Were Danced to Pieces; The Brothers Grimm

I have twelve sisters and each is more beautiful than the last. A bevy of beauties! They made the collective noun in honour of us. Briony told me. A brilliant, bounteous bevy, that's us!

It was Briony who showed you in. I don't have a favourite sister, but if I did it would be Briony. She is very kind to me. She always reads me stories and keeps me occupied though she is exhausted herself most of the time. I think she might be ill, she has the darkest circles under her eyes and never eats at mealtimes.

I'm so worried.

This our rouleau of coins that we've collected – our father brings them back from his state trips – and for my last birthday she gave me a flight of doves and we let them go from my window and sometimes a dove will come and sit on my window sill and I know it's one of Briony's birds.

Sometimes I think Briony was a bird who woke up one morning and decided to be a princess. She has the most fragile bones, you see – that's why birds can fly, because their bones are hollow, it was in a book Briony read me. Briony's bones break very easily, she gets _furious_ if any of our sisters push her in case she falls. You can see each one through her skin and you don't want to annoy her or she might jab you with her elbows and they're really pointy and sore.

I tried to call her Skeleton Briony, but she said it sounded silly because it didn't flow properly and 'monikers are supposed to trip of your tongue'. Briony is excellent at making up nicknames – she calls me sweet heart!

There are only eleven of us now. Our eldest sister Bridget drowned when I was two. It must have been hard for her, being the eldest and each of her sisters a surpassing beauty – to hear Badr tell it, Bridget was practically plain. But she had the sweetest disposition, she was a truly good person, so I've been told. I sometimes wonder if it was the injustice of me being what I am that pushed her over the edge.

Like Beth now – who paints herself deadly white and hides her frizzy red hair in a cache of jewels – Bridget tried to make herself more beautiful. She wore this enormous contraption under her skirts, like a birdcage for a whole pride of ostriches, and kept getting stuck in doorways. Then one day she was walking along the sea wall and a gust of wind snuck under her skirt. She floated over the wall like a wayward umbrella and into the deep blue sea.

You can laugh if you like. It was years ago and if she'd been rescued it would have been the greatest joke, we all would have laughed about it and never let her forget it.

This is my visitor.

No, they're _my_ visitor.

Then get your own, you can't take mine!

Ignore Beatrix, we all do, because she always grumpy because her liver's out of place. And her kidneys. I'm not allowed to tell you this but promise you won't snitch on me? Under her dresses, she wears a corpse of corsetry! And it takes _three_ maids to huff and puff the laces tight each morning. And she just got a new one that sticks her bosoms out in front and her bottom out back and I think she looks _ridiculous_. But don't tell her I said it! Or she'll whack me with her horrible bustle and it hurts.

We all like getting visitors. A man called Rubens came to visit Badr every week for three months to do a painting of her and the rest of us were so jealous. He said she was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen – which is completely not true because she's not the youngest, I am. Of course, he _did_ say the most beautiful woman he had ever _seen_ so I bet my defibrillator she never opened her mouth when he was around. She's vicious – I told you what she said about Bridget – and has a mind like a steel trap though you wouldn't think to look at her, all those curves make her seem as placid as a cow.

Beatrix says she's as fat as an ugly of walruses and then Badr always says _she's_ just jealous because she's always so pinched, 'a small waist is a small mind'. And if we're really lucky, Beatrix will throw herself on Badr shouting 'I'd take you seriously, but to do so would be an affront to your intelligence!' and then Badr will try to smother her into submission and the only person who can draw them apart is Beth, who's sensible about everything but makeup. And Beth reminds Badr not to do anything silly or else her heart might stop, but my room's just down the hall so it probably wouldn't be too bad.

Of course Bakari utterly despairs of them, says they're unladylike and a disgrace to our royal name. Bakari is very concerned with appearances, but political not aesthetic ones. She's the most regal of us – even in her nightgown, because she can't takes off her gold rings! No, really it's because she can stare down her nose better than anyone. She goes with Father on state visits, solving all the problems in the world by looking disapprovingly at them until they slink off to sort themselves out – once a whole house of senators were set quaking in their collective boots with a single glare.

At home, she jokes about it all saying she's go the weight of the world on her shoulders and she needs the responsibility like she needs another pain in the neck. It can't be easy always having your chin up and shoulders down.

Here's a sister I don't mind you meeting!

I was telling them about Bakari, Bo.

What? O!

Do you get it? She bows to no one because the rings hold her neck straight and she can't bend it!

Bring her in and set her on my bed. But– where are you going?

Alright. But before you leave could you show us your–

_Please_? Just for me? You haven't come to visit in an age and a half.

We don't get to see each other very often because it was sore for Bo to walk – but just today she got her carriers so she can come all the time!

Do your feet hurt very much?

See, Briony said it would be better if you just kept off them. Now will you show, pretty please?

The glass slippers were made specially, there's something in them that makes them unbreakable. And now everyone can see the delicate curl of her foot. The way her toes bend under, I think it looks like a lotus waiting to unfurl its petals.

Already? Come back soon! I miss you.


	2. Part Two

I have four other sisters, but I am growing tired and I want to tell you about me. 

O dear, that sounds terrible! Please forgive me, it's not that I think I'm better than them, except– Well, it's me, and I'm allowed to think that I'm special because I _am_ me and that's all that I am so I _should_ think I'm special– Yes.

And I am the twelfth so I am the most beautiful. I am the biggest joke. No really, you will laugh when you hear it. You see, everyone knows that true beauty is on the inside – you know it yourself. I bet, ha! I bet my heart that your mother told you so, more than once.

O! I did not mean to say that, your outsides are alright too, really. I'm sorry.

What was I saying?

Beauty's on the inside. So I, being more beautiful than _all_ my sisters, have a heart of gold. No truly! I am a living metaphor, an existential play on words even!

They don't work very well, you know. Hearts made of gold. I always envied Snow White; she was born with her translucent complexion, mine was acquired at a particularly strenuous cost!

No, see, that was joke, another joke. I really haven't had to do anything. I lie in bed all day, between my crisp clean sheets in my crisp clean room surrounded by my troupe of crisp clean ladies who bustle, it's very soothing, I recommend it to everyone.

_Leave_?

Where would I go? And with all my machines and tubes and things that go _blip_ – no, it would be too much trouble for everybody. Besides, I have my sisters, and books, and sometimes I draw a little. And the nurses and maids are very nice. And my window! I can see the whole world from my window. There's the orchard and the rose garden, and the lake, and over the wall you can see the smoke rising from the town, and if you lean sideways a range of mountains peeps around the edge of the window frame. Everything right there, I don't need to leave. There isn't a, a jungle or an ocean or things like that but Briony says they are hundreds of miles away and not many people get to see them so I shouldn't worry.

No. I don't have a single disappointment or regre–

Well, I suppose there is one thing I do regret not being able to do.

No, it's embarrassing, such a little girl's dream.

I– I'd like to go to a ball. My sisters tell me of them, the dresses, the food, the music, the– boys. I have this –more than a dream – heaven, a palace made of silver and gold and diamonds and light, and my sisters and I go there and we meet a company of the most handsome princes you have ever seen, and we dance all night until our shoes are danced to pieces! Imagine–

Don't look at me like that. Don't pity me. I don't like it. There's no need for it. I am a _princess_, I am blessed with a– with a bevy of sisters, and each of us is more beautiful than the last. And I–

I–

* * *

Everything is alright, sweet heart, nothing is the matter. Just lie back and try to rest. 

I will have to ask you to leave. You have upset her and she is not very strong. Please go.

Now.


End file.
